


verba non facta

by prowlish



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1428139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prowlish/pseuds/prowlish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one knows where Drift is. It's starting to get to Ratchet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	verba non facta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goodnyte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnyte/gifts).



> Still very slowly getting out these twitter requests. :T Switching to a new job takes a lot when the old one wants to do everything to keep you around! 
> 
> It's like 4 am and I tried to beta this a bit but I can make no quality assurances.
> 
> This is for goodnyte, who asked for literally anything with Dratchet. (Because we have a problem.) This one kind of got out of hand. See previously referenced problem.

Despite what most bots might think of the belligerent, opinionated medic, Ratchet did know how and when to keep quiet on some things that didn’t fall under doctor-patient privilege. LIke Minimus in the Magnus armor, for one. Things like that.

 

Or things like the encrypted ping which appeared on his work console one morning, exactly a megacycle after Drift had been seen off the _Lost Light._

 

He couldn’t reply, of course. But Drift knew that; it was enough of a risk for him to have sent the few lines in the first place, telling him that he was okay, really, just a bit lonely because space was so big and you never really realize just how big until you’re navigating it yourself.

 

What an idiot, Ratchet thought. What a damned idiot with rust for brains! And he held onto those thoughts, trying to be angry. Or at least, more angry than he was worried. It was always one or the other with the fool kid. And he had plenty to be angry about! But, as always, it cycled back to the worry, because Drift never really seemed to know how to take care of himself. The swordsmech would resent that idea, he knew, but Ratchet felt it was true. There was a reason he’d given Drift blanket permission to use the secure line to his work console.

 

\---

 

A megacycle after the first, he got another message. _All clear. Space is still big. Miss everyone._

 

Ratchet’s hands had curled tight around the console’s edges. Miss everyone, his fragging aft. Aside from himself, everyone that had seen him off the ship had literally thrown scrap at him. Then again, maybe the mech was that glitched! Well, he had to have been, to be in on this whole Overlord scheme, but Ratchet wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Drift was the sole party responsible. And he’d been proven right. But none of that mattered now, because Drift was gone.

 

\---

 

Another megacycle went by in silence, and Ratchet would deny to his offlining that he was hoping to get another one of those pings at his console. But the megacycle came and went, and there was nothing. A decacycle, still nothing, and it gnawed at the back of his processors. There was plenty other to think about and do in the immediate, but he’d still often catch himself wondering after Drift or checking his console one too many times a shift.

 

How irritating. He wanted to yell at Drift for firmly wedging himself beneath Ratchet’s plating this way, but the mech wasn’t there, and that was even more irritating!

 

\---

 

More decacycles went by, nearly a full stellar cycle, and there seemed no trace of him. No one on the ship seemed to care, save himself and Rodimus, and he wouldn’t give Rodimus even the slight comfort of commiserating with him. Even though he knew Drift went willingly -- it was exactly the type of damn fool thing the kid would insist upon doing -- Rodimus was still a convenient target for his ire. Their captain was drowning in guilt, and Ratchet didn’t feel the first inkling of desire to absolve any of it.

 

Yet when Rodimus commed him in the medibay, Ratchet listened, because he knew the priority marker and Rodimus’s unusually somber tone were a bad sign. The medic spoke with Rodimus in sharp tones, even as he threw together an emergency medical kit, because knowing Drift he’d need it. _:You picked up his signal, you said?:_

 

A long pause. Ratchet huffed inarticulately, stomping from the medibay with only few words to First Aid. _:We… picked up the signature of his craft,:_ Rodimus replied carefully. Rodimus. Careful. Those concepts didn’t belong in the same idea.

 

Still, Ratchet scowled as he shook his helm. _:I’m on my way.:_

\---

 

It was Drift’s shuttle, alright. It hadn’t exactly crashed on this remote moon of some gas giant, but the little craft definitely looked the worse for wear. Even this close, they weren’t picking up any life signs from it. Ratchet chose to ignore the sense of foreboding rising in his tanks. Once Perceptor had deemed it safe to enter, Ratchet took point, crawling up into the small shuttle and situating himself into the cockpit. There was a layer of dust on the controls. The ship was abandoned. Ratchet cursed under his intake cycles. Now what? Drift certainly wasn’t lurking on this barren moon anywhere!

 

Sighing, uncurling the fists he’d coiled his hands into, he idly toyed with some of the non-piloting computer functions while he finally answered Rodimus that no, there was no sign of Drift. One of the dirty screens brightened to light at his touch, and Ratchet scrolled through the text just as idly as he’d fiddled with the controls that brought it up… until his processor caught up with his optics and he realized what he was reading. Were these… log files? Ratchet sat forward, hope flaring within him. Now this could be some clue!

 

He skimmed over one and frowned… skipped to the end. No… no hints to where Drift could have gone or how, given that Ratchet was sitting in his only transportation. But Ratchet still saved the whole archive before he finally lowered himself out of the cockpit and back onto the alien surface.

 

Ratchet simply shook his helm at the waiting faces that gathered.

 

\---

 

He’d done a lot of reading that night, and he felt like he could strangle Drift, if they could ever track the idiot down! No, it hadn’t been log files he’d downloaded, but a full archive of letters, all addressed to Ratchet.

 

None of the “I’m doing fine but I miss everyone” slag that he’d actually sent, but pages and pages of thoughts and feelings, laid out more stream of consciousness than anything. But then, Ratchet couldn’t imagine Drift had much else to do on the ship. The whole thing was surprisingly… intimate.

 

Ratchet sighed, sinking into his berth as the ache from his spark pulsed through his frame. “Dammit, kid… where are you?” he muttered to the still air of his hab suite.

 

\---

 

Another stellar cycle, and more nothing. But Ratchet often reread those letters, and kept them close to rebuff the dark conclusions of his mind.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [@prowlish](https://twitter.com/prowlish) on twitter!! :)


End file.
